CHAP. I

ON CERTAIN BURIAL CUSTOMS

33

bread offered- to the dead, for of course if the bread was
damp the ghost could not get at it.1

Once more, we saw that fire was a great stumbling-block
to ghosts. Hence in Calabria and Burma the fires in the
house are extinguished when a death takes place, doubtless
"(originally) in case they should burn the ghost.2 The same
custom used to be observed in the Highlands of Scotland, in
Germany, and apparently in Rome.3 So in old Iran, no
fire was allowed to be used in the house for nine days (in
summer for a month) after a death,4 and in later times every
fire in the Persian empire was extinguished in the interval
between the death and burial of a king.5

1 Fr. Spiegel, Eranische Alter-
thumskunde, iii. p. 705.

2 Vinccnzo Dorsa, La Tradizione
Greco-Latina negli usi e nelle credenze
popolari della Calabria Citcriore, pp.
20,88 ; Forbes, British Burma, p. 94.

3 J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii.
P- 23S J James Logan, The Scottish
Gael, ii. p. 387 ; L. Preller, Romische
Mythologie, ii. p. 159; Apuleius,
Metam. ii. 24; Juvenal, iii. 214,
" tune odinius ignem ". In North
Germany there is no baking in the
house on the day of a death (Kuhn und
Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, Mar-
chen, und Gebrauchc, p. 435). The
reason of the custom appears to be
forgotten in Oldenburg, where the
fire is only extinguished when the
corpse is carried out (Strackerjan,
Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem
Herzogthum Oldenburg, i. p. 154;
Wuttke, Dcutscher Aberglaube, § 609).

4 Vendidad, v. 39 sqq.; Fr. Spiegel,
Eranische Alterthumskunde, iii. p.
706 ; W. Geiger, Ostiranische JKultur
im Alterthum, p. 258.

5 Diodorus, xvii. 114. On the
other hand it has been a common
practice to place a light beside the
corpse for the convenience of the ghost.
But it would appear that people have
been somewhat puzzled how to light
and warm the ghost without burning
him. Thus some modern Jews place
a burning candle beside the corpse in
order to light the soul; but others
maintain that a lighted candle near
the body causes acute pain to the

disembodied spirit (Gardner, Faiths
of the World, p. 677; Buxtorf,
Synagoga Judaica, p. 699 ; Boden-
schatz, JKirchliche Verfassung der
heutigen Juden, iv. p. 171). In Ger-
many, so long as the body is above
ground a light must be kept constantly
burning beside it, for which the reason
assigned in Voigtland is that the soul
may not walk in darkness (Wuttke,
Deutscher Aberglaube, § 729 ; Kohler,
Volksbrauch im Voigtlande, p. 442 ;
A. Birlinger, Volksthiimliches aus
Schwaben, p. 404; F. Schmidt,
Sitten und Gebrauche in Thiiringen,
p. 87). In England candles used to
be burned, beside or on the corpse
(Brand, Popular Antiquities, ii. p. 234;
Henderson, Folk-lore of the Northern
Counties, p. 54). In Russia a lighted
candle is usually placed beside the
corpse or in its hand (Ralston, Songs
of the Russian People, p. 314). In
modern Greece when a death takes
place candles or lamps are immediately
lighted and kept burning three days
and three nights, for during that time
the soul of the deceased is supposed to
linger in or to return to the house
(Polk-lorejournal, ii. p. 168; Bent, The
Cyclades^.22i. CompareWachsmuth,
Das alte Griechenland im neuen, pp.
107, 108, 119), In China candles are
kept burning round the coffin " to
light the spirit of the dead on his way ",
or "to give light to the spirit which
remains with the corpse " (Doolittle,
Social Life of the Chinese, p. 126;
Dennys, Folk-lore of China, p. 21 ;
D